Sunday, 7 June 2009

Initially the post was meant to be titled “Nie bądź kaszalot – cast a ballot”. Eventually I chose the pun instead of Polish – English rhyme.

I’ve just come home from my polling station in Nowa Iwiczna. According to the first turnout figures announced by The National Electoral Commission percentage of voters who cast ballots until 12:00 (within first four hours of voting) reached only 6,65%, less than one per cent point more than five years ago. My parents and I were at the time the only people in the station, few young couples with children were hanging around the school complex where the polling station is located, but nobody seemed eager to get in and fulfil their duty. Three women sitting behind the desk, checking IDs and giving out ballot papers were waiting for the end of their shift (at 3:00 p.m.). I put my signature on the huge sheet with the breakdown of the voters, noticing none of my neighbours has already come, marked a cross next to my candidate’s name and marched towards the ballot box… Nothing extraordinary, the next occasion to vote will be in October 2010, so in sixteen months… I was a bit struck by the passivity of our electorate, however, I keep in mind that many of Nowa Iwiczna’s residents are registered somewhere else – along with the official data, number of residents of my village does not exceed one thousand, but I estimate about four thousand people really live here. That thesis might be backed by number plates of cars parked in front of the houses – lots of them have Warsaw plates, with WN (Ursynów), WW (mostly Wilanów), WE (Mokotów) and WI (Śródmieście) prevailing. Some of them are for sure company cars, but some of my neighbours are registered somewhere else.I bet the ultimate turnout will be in the range of twenty to thirty per cent, somewhere around twenty four. A bit sad…

And some terrible news… Yesterday my parents spotted first grey hair on my head… Today I spotted next three – two are on the left side of my head, two on the right, aligned in ideal symmetry…

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Written by a more-or-less anonymous Polish student, PES can be a daunting read for the generally attention-deficient blog reader, but it’s worth the effort. The bloke refuses to compromise and will hit you with 2,000 words about Polish corruption if he feels it’s needed. The fact that he makes the effort to do all this in English leaves me in awe.